International Workshop

Innovation Vouchers: Enabling SMEs to Innovate
24th-25th November 2016, New Delhi

Context: While the MSME sector is acknowledged
and admired for it agility, dynamism,innovativeness, adaptability and maintaining asustained annual growth of 10%, there is no denialthat the potential of this sector to achieve “higheconomic growth and create more jobs” has not
yet been fully realised. Existing mechanisms tosupport the growth of the SME sector often fail toachieve the desired results in enabling innovation,
as they impose pre-designed schematic solutions
not matching with more complex real situations
and also missing the concrete, actual demand andlimitations of the target group. Innovation
promotion measures often focus only ontechnology upgrade and transfer and fail tocontribute to the establishment of an innovation
eco-system; wherein cooperation and networking
between different actors lead to innovation.
Therefore, new approaches have to be identified
and adopted to tackle the well-known challenges
faced by the SME sector in its pursuit of innovation.
Innovation Vouchers The idea of Innovation
Vouchers (IV) is not new, however, it approaches
the support to SME from a different angle
compared to existing mechanisms and tools.
Rather than supporting entrepreneurs on a predecided areas, the Innovation Voucher concept
aims to encourage entrepreneurs to come forwardwith their own ideas – where they want to innovate
and with whom they want to cooperate. A paper,
published by the OECD in 2010 on innovation
vouchers explains it “as small lines of credit
provided by governments to SMEs to purchaseservices from public knowledge providers with aview to introducing small-scale or incremental
innovations (new products, processes or services) intheir business operations”. The paper further
identified two major impacts of innovation
vouchers, both of which overcome major incentive
barriers to the usual engagement between SMEs
and knowledge providers. While the voucher on
the one hand motivates SMEs to approachknowledge providers with their innovation-related
problems - something that they might not havedone in the absence of such an incentive, thevoucher also provides an incentive for publicknowledge providers to work with SMEs, although
they usually tend to work with bigger corporates.

Workshop:DeutscheGesellschaft
furInternationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Office ofDC MSME, Ministry of MSME, Govt. of India are
jointly implementing Indo German BilateralDevelopment Cooperation Project “Innovation
promotion in MSME” ; with an objective of“Improved Innovation System– which
systematically promotes cooperation between
industry, academia & Govt.
With reference to the aim of systematiccooperation between Industry and Academia there
are few SME support programmes in India, whichfund cooperation between industry and academic
institutes. However, those that do support
cooperation differ from the IVP in following ways:
 They often have a specific objective outlined
and thus provide very little flexibility forSMEs.
 Exploratory stages are normally not funded.
Existing support programmes are thus notsuitable for enterprise who are looking tofully develop or define their ideas.
 Many existing support programmes
mandate the industry to apply jointly with aresearch partner and are thus not suitable
for small enterprises that usually do notknow about potential knowledge partner.

Based on the international experiences andempirical evidences about the utility of this
instrument for promoting innovation in SMEs,
GIZ together with the Ministry of Micro, Smalland Medium Enterprises (MoMSME) isorganising an international workshop “Innovation Voucher: Enabling SMEs toInnovate”. Objective of the workshop is tounderstand and analyse the appropriateness,
feasibility,schemes
structure&implementation
mechanism,different
approaches, success & risks factors of“Innovation Voucher” – as a support
instruments to facilitate innovation in SMEs –from Indian and International experiences.

International Workshop

Innovation Vouchers: Enabling SMEs to Innovate
24th-25th November 2016, New Delhi

Organizers: Ministry of MSME, GIZ
Supported by: DST, NITI AAYOG
Co – Organizers/ International Knowledge Partners (Tentative): Steinbeis Advisory Centre,
University of Cologne, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
Co – Organizers / National Partners (Tentative): FISME /CII/FICCI others……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Target Audience: Policy Makers from MoMSME, DST, DeitY, NITI Aayog, State Govts –Directorate of Industries; national associations and chambers, national and international
agencies involved in SME development and Promotion-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------International Speakers Expected from: Germany, Sweden, Denmark, U.K…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Agenda and Structure: This workshop in its first part would explain in some depth the principleof IVP, describe the varieties of embodiment it has found in different countries, as well as
analyzing the pros and cons of the various models. The structure of and the experience withthe pilot project in India would also be presented, its strong and weaker sides compared withthe models applied in other countries and drawing first lessons for the potential future
development of a strategy and a scheme for India, identifying needs and possibilities.
Day 1 – Thursday 24th November 2016
Registration starts @ 9:30 am
Inaugural Session (10:00 – 11:00)
 Opening Remarks by GIZ country director / Programme Director
 Innovation and SMEs – Shri S N Tripathi , AS&DC MSME
 Key Note Speech by Shri K K Jalan - Secretary MSME , Industry – Academia Linkages : Connecting the dots by Shri Amitabh Kant , CEO NITIAayog
 Guest of Honour Shri Kalraj Mishra Hon’ble Minister MSME , Govt Of India
 Vote of Thanks
Networking over Tea /Coffee 11:00 -11:30 AM
Innovation Voucher : Basic Idea and Policy Framework (11:30 – 13:00 PM)
This session would present an overview of innovation supporting tool box used by policy makers, principleof Innovation Voucher programme, varieties found in different countries, pros and cons of the variousmodels, in particular their effect under particular conditions and depending on the economic and politicaltargets under which they were applied.

Session Moderation – Shri Manoj Joshi – Joint Secretary , Ministry of MSME
Genesis, Growth and Impact of Innovation Voucher in Germany - Dr. Werner Bruns –Senior Fellow University of Applied Science (RFH) in Cologne
Comparative Assessment of Innovation Voucher Schemes on the wider economy in EU- Johana Skantze – Volante Research Sweden
Importance of Innovation Voucher in the Policy Tool Box - Ms Maren Richter –TeamLeader International Advisory Services- Frankfurt School of finance & Management

International Workshop

Innovation Vouchers: Enabling SMEs to Innovate
24th-25th November 2016, New DelhiLunch (13:00 -14:00 PM)
IVP Implementation Experience: Learnings from the Practitioners ( 14:00-16:00 pm)
This session is expected to introduce different International IVP Models: How do they differ in design,implementation and Impact. Including Experience and Learning from Indian Pilot in Tamil Nadu.



Session Moderation – Joint Secretary –DST , Govt. of India
Innovation Vouchers Denmark - Mr. Peter H Andersen - Director
Innovation Voucher UK - Dr Ruth Mckernan – Chief Executive Innovate UK
Innovation Voucher Baden-Weerttemberg , Germany - Prof Peter Schafer , BMWI
IVP in Tamilnadu, India - Ms Rajalakshmi -Tanstia FNS & Ms Maren Richter –TeamLeader International Advisory Services- Frankfurt School of finance & Management

Tea /Coffee Break (16:00- 16:30 PM)
Success Factors (16:30-17:15)
 Introducing IVP: Essential Factors to be considered while integrating IVP in policy mix Dr. Werner Bruns – Senior Fellow University of Applied Science (RFH) in Cologne
End of Day 1

Day 2 – Thursday 25th November 2016
Each group has 12-15 members from state govt , 1-2 sme rep , central govt. –Parallel Tracks - facilitated by 1 moderator

3 working group(10:00 – 12:00)



Track 1 – Design and Customize IVP for India ; facilitated by Johana
Skantze – Volante Research Sweden
Track 2 - Implementing IVP in India ; facilitated by Dr. Werner Bruns– Senior Fellow University of Applied Science (RFH) in Cologne
Track 3 - “Forget IVP – It won’t work/ applicable to Indian context”;
facilitated by an Indian Expert (TBD)

Networking over Tea /Coffee 12:00-12:30 pm
Plenary Session ( 12:30 – 13:30)
 Presentation of results from each group by the Moderator
 Session Moderation and Concluding Remarks – Shri S N Tripathi , AS & DC MSME ,MoMSME
Ends with lunch“Innovation Promotion in MSME” project would undertake follow up measures for reachingconclusions about whether it makes sense to develop a uniform model for the whole of Indiaor whether there have to regional differences etc. The final result is expected to be a roadmapfor implementation of the IV idea in India; if found appropriate.